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Security

Submission + - Skype update enables account theft (h-online.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: The recent update to Skype 5.5 for Windows contains a severe security vulnerability that allows attackers to get control of your Skype account, according to security expert David Vieira-Kurz. The update promises close integration with Facebook – for instance, you are to be able to track your Facebook friends' activities from your Skype client and even post wall messages from there. But it turns out that the process entails a real security risk, because the client executes JavaScript code in Facebook status messages without filtering.

Skype executes JavaScript code in Facebook comments without filtering Zoom In this way, an attackers can capture a Skype user's cookie, and hence that user's Skype session. The H's associates at heise Security were able to reproduce the problem.

H-online: http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Skype-update-enables-account-theft-1288403.html
The Internet

Submission + - Tens of thousands flee from BT and Virgin (itpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
twoheadedboy
twoheadedboy writes: "The two biggest ISPs in the UK are losing thousands of customers. Earlier this week Virgin reported it had lost 36,000 cable broadband customers. BT, meanwhile, has seen around 125,000 active consumer line customers flee this quarter. With that many customers leaving, where are they going?"

Submission + - House Panel Approves Bill Forcing ISPs Log Users (cnet.com) 2

Submitted by skids
skids writes: Under the guise of fighting child pornography, the House Judiciary Committee approved legislation on Thursday that would require Internet service providers (ISPs) to collect and retain records about Internet users’ activity. The 19 to 10 vote represents a victory for conservative Republicans, who made data retention their first major technology initiative after last fall's elections. A last-minute rewrite of the bill expands the information that commercial Internet providers are required to store to include customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses. Per dissenting Rep. John Conyers (D-MI): 'The bill is mislabeled ... This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It's creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes.'

Submission + - A pound of flesh: how Cisco's "unmitigated gall" d (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by CortxVortx
CortxVortx writes: High-tech entrepreneur Peter Adekeye's yearlong nightmare began after he dropped his wife off at the Vancouver International airport and headed downtown to The Wedgewood, a posh boutique hotel. Inside a tasteful boardroom adorned with gilt-framed mirrors, the US District Court for Northern California, San Jose division, had convened a special sitting to hear Adekeye's deposition as part of a massive antitrust action he had launched against his former employer, the computer giant Cisco Systems. At 5:15pm, however, two plainclothes women—the shorter one brandishing a badge—and two uniformed police officers entered the room. Adekeye was confused, as were his two Wall Street lawyers and the special judicial master conducting the hearing. But the four lawyers for Cisco knew exactly what was going on...
Government

Submission + - Anonymous & Lulz Security Write Letter to FBI (securityweek.com) 1

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: After announcing it had stolen 1GB of Data after hacking NATO systems today, Anonymous continued with some additional actions.

In response to an article published by NPR surrounding the recent arrest of alleged members of the Anonymous hacking group, Anonymous & Lulz Security, in a joint statement, responded with an open letter to FBI and “international law authorities,” and specifically responding to statements from FBI director Steve Chabinsky.

In the letter, the groups respond to comments by the FBI calling their actions of breaking in to websites and commiting unlawful acts unacceptable, by explaining what they find is unacceptable, and thus the reasons for their continued efforts to hack an expose governments and corporations that are “lying to their citizens and inducing fear and terror to keep them in control by dismantling their freedom piece by piece.”

Submission + - NASA's Hubble Discovers Another Moon Around Pluto (nasa.gov)

Submitted by thebchuckster
thebchuckster writes: Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite – temporarily designated P4 — was uncovered in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet.

The new moon is the smallest discovered around Pluto. It has an estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km). By comparison, Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is 648 miles (1,043 km) across, and the other moons, Nix and Hydra, are in the range of 20 to 70 miles in diameter (32 to 113 km).
Piracy

Submission + - Movie ind bins report: pirates are great consumers (geek.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The movie and music industry seem hell bent on portraying pirates as criminals and parasites who cost both industries billions of dollars in lost sales. In order to prove this fact a number of studies are commissioned to help demonstrate the effect a pirate has on sales of entertainment.

The problem with this approach is that it has been found to be biased towards portraying pirates as the movie industry wants them to be seen, rather than presenting the facts. A great example of this has been discovered by the German-language politics and media website Telepolis.

GfK Group is one of the largest market research companies in the world and is often used by the movie industry to carry out research and studies into piracy. Talking to a source within GfK who wished to remain anonymous, Telepolis found that a recent study looking at pirates and their purchasing activities found them to be almost the complete opposite of the criminal parasites the entertainment industry want them to be.

The study states that it is much more typical for a pirate to download an illegal copy of a movie to try it before purchasing. They are also found to purchase more DVDs than the average consumer, and they visit the movie theater more, especially for opening weekend releases which typically cost more to attend.

The conclusion of the study is that movie pirates are generally more interested in film and therefore spend more money and invest more time in it. In other words, they make up some of the movie industries best customers.

Unfortunately, we will never get to read the official version of the study as the unnamed client who paid for it to be created has decided it should not see a release. The reason given for shelving it was that the contents proved “unpleasant.”
Advertising

Submission + - Study: Ad Networks Not Honoring Do-Not-Track (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "According to a new study from Stanford University's Center for Internet Society, almost half of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) members that Stanford studied left tracking cookies in place after a Web user opted out of targeted ads. NAI's executive director said that with no consensus on what do-not-track means, ad networks continue to gather data for business reasons other than providing targeted advertising. 'Under the NAI self-regulatory code, companies commit to providing an opt out to the use of online data for online behavioral advertising purposes,' Curran said. 'But the NAI code also recognizes that companies sometimes need to continue to collect data for operational reasons that are separate from ad targeting based on a user's online behavior.'"

Submission + - Earthquake Causes River to Disappear (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Endoflow2010
Endoflow2010 writes: Following a series of moderate earthquakes that struck the country Tuesday, residents around the Guacalito River in Costa Rica discovered that the river had disappeared. Earthquake-report.com reported that sometime after the earthquakes, villagers living near the river, which is located near Armenia de Upala, discovered that the river was dry.

It was not immediately known if the waters of the river had disappeared due to sinkhole activity that can occur after earthquakes or if the earth shaking caused damming that dried up the river near the Miravalles volcano. The quakes were centered near the Nicaragua and Costa Rica border in the same vicinity as the Miravalles volcano.

UPDATE 13/07 – 14:31 UTC : Just after the earthquake, villagers living near the Río Guacalito at Armenias de Upala were surprised that the river was suddenly dry! Villagers believe that a dam was created on the slopes of of the Miravalles volcano which dried up the river.

Comment Re:Doubling the value! (Score 1) 488

by Afforess (#36739870) Attached to: Netflix Announces Streaming Only Plans and Higher Prices for DVDs
I feel compelled to mention that they only increase their streaming selection every day. Just recently, all of the Star Trek TV series came on Instant (There goes my free time). So technically, they are adding value every day, and not charging more for it. Imagine if they charged based on the size of their streaming catalogue, or per-usage. ;)

Also, Amazon, Google, and Hulu combined still don't match up. Add that to increasing contractual costs (http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/08/technology/netflix_starz_contract/), and the price increase is no surprise.

Finally, keep in mind this is a price decrease for those not interested in streaming at all, and $16 is WAY cheaper than my previous $50 cable bill...
Politics

Submission + - Congress to vote to repeal incandescent bulb ban (cnn.com) 1

Submitted by Bob the Super Hamste
Bob the Super Hamste writes: CNN Money is running as story about a bill Congress is going to vote today to repeal the "incandescent light bulb ban" that was put into place during the Bush administration. The bill is supported by Republicans in congress who are claiming this places unnecessary restrictions on the market. For those of you wondering it does bring up the standard issues of energy efficiency, mercury (in both the bulbs and that emitted by coal power), and cost of the bulbs. The bill was introduced by Texas Congressman Joe Barton.

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